Yahoo Shares Specs on Planned Pay Per Click Upgrade

Coming right on the heels of Microsoft's adCenter launch, the team at Yahoo has finally decided to publicly release some details of the updates they plan to launch this fall to their own pay per click advertising platform. In an email sent to Yahoo advertisers, the company laid out plans for more than half a dozen new features designed to give advertisers more control and better returns for their campaigns.

An overview of new features from the email:

"While the enhancements to our platform are dramatic and will provide immediate benefits to our advertisers, we ultimately rebuilt our system with the future in mind," said Steve Mitgang, Yahoo!’s senior vice president of advertising platforms and products. "Once the first version of the core platform is in place, we will be able to move quickly to build in capabilities that ultimately will provide search advertisers deeper access to Yahoo!’s more than 420 million users, broader advertising capabilities, proven targeting expertise and global distribution network."

Yahoo! has also released the API for the new system so that companies that rely on API technology for paid search management will have time to build new versions of their software before the updates are launched later this year.

Existing advertisers should expect to see a series of new emails from Yahoo that will provide some types and information on getting your account ready for the changes. They'll also be adding a new blog to cover tips, news and information about Yahoo! Search Marketing.

Once Yahoo has launched the changes outlined above, they'll begin another feature rollout designed to rank ads based on a quality index. This change will result in Yahoo having a ranking system that more closely resembles the one in Google's AdWords. Currently, Yahoo paid search ads are ranked based solely on the bid price of the advertisers. The new system, while still unknown, will incorporate things like ad text, click through rates and geographical region to help make sure that the most relevant ads rise to the top of the listings.

Yahoo has stated that it also plans to roll out "additional distribution options" and new ad targeting based on either demographic information, online user activity or other features. The launch dates for those features is still unknown.

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